Alliances
by Bluekid
Summary: The war is raging. Every navi is expected to contribute to his country's alliance, including those who are thought to be dead.
1. Chapter 1

Hello. This is my story.

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><p>The sun filtered lazily through the ornate stained glass, on to a carefully polished marble floor, painting bright colors on the floors and flashing different tints over the shiny black shoes belonging to politicians. Those shiny black politician shoes clacked their way into a huge dome-like structure, filled with hundreds of expensive looking and uncomfortable seats set up in a huge semi-circle around a plain, and rather lonely looking podium that sat at the center of a raised platform. The clacking became more frequent and occasionally irritating as the place filled up with suit-clad Presidents, Prime Ministers, Dictators, Chairmen, and Chancellors of all kinds, namely, of all the prominent countries. They pulled out sleek looking cell-phones and large newspapers and glanced suspiciously at each other while contacting their respective militaries. The sour reek of corruption* continued to permeated the previously clear, and rather sweet smelling air until the attendants were forced to turn on the ceiling fans.<p>

Outside, planes flew in perfect formation around the building, seeking out enemies to bomb, a line of laser-tanks circled the building and a glowing blue nexus formed a translucent dome around the rather old antique looking construction. The technology really ruined the effect of "long-standing power", but the official event's architect/designer was currently sunbathing in the Bahamas and would be doing so for the next three weeks.

In Rev-Bristol bundles of code marched around the building, ready to shoot at anything that moved. They bore a close resemblance to Storm Troopers and tended to give the great grandparents nostalgia. These were one of the first net-defense corps created. The PM requested it to enforce the completely thrashed theme: 'antique'

When the huge room finally filled up, a large, sweaty looking man heaved himself to his feet and motioned to the attendants to close the over-large doors. Three did so quietly and with respect, the fourth had been paid a sum of money by one of his stupid friends to slam the door he was attending. A loud _BANG_ and an embarrassing silence, followed by the collective glares of the most influential people in the world sent the offending servant scurrying. Four hours later, he was filling out immigration papers to Alaska.

The large man cleared his throat and looked down at his notes. '_Good afternoon Gentlemen...' look around and smile broadly. _The statement went very well for about seventy percent of the people present. The thirty percent women quickly scribbled _PrimeMin. Nathaniel Sullivan- Sexist _as a new entry in their 'hate books'.

Unknowing that he had just turned almost a quarter of the world against him with the first three words of his speech, Nathaniel Sullivan continued with flaky determination.

"I must impart to all of you, that one of our greatest cities, London was recently destroyed – " something above the PM's left eyebrow twitched and there was a cold silence, with a valiant British effort, the Prime minister tossed his notes to the ground . He didn't need a carefully planned speech he convey his rage, Hell, he'd just lost three vacation homes!. He stepped out from behind the podium, revealing his sheer bulk. For any other group of people, this might have been intimidating, however, the politicians simply placed the label of, '_has eaten one too many doughnuts_' on the man.

"six-million dead, two-hundred billion dollars in repairs, network completely severed, military information deleted and the offender?" The crowd twittered aggressively, the rank stench of corruption intensified and the attendants began to gag."Russia!" There was a screech as a fierce looking woman stood up and began to protest in rapid Russian, Japan and China's Leaders, long-time business partner's of Russia also joined in, yelling in their respective languages. Prime Minister Sullivan turned an interesting shade of puce and began shouting. The remaining nations quickly took a side and added their languages into the din.

The meeting descended into chaos

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* Implying that the leaders were corrupt, therefore giving off the scent of corruption.

- EU HeadQuarters

The Recondite Corps sat stiffly in a dark room around a semi-circular table, the war between the EU and the UN had been going on for a months now. Thousands of soldiers were being manufactured and deployed each week, and usually none returned. Even though the EU had slightly superior technology, it really didn't do much good. The battle was at a standstill.

Japan's commanding General, who went by the name Baryl, appeared on a screen opposite the seated subordinates. He was a man of about twenty and was considered a prodigy and genius in his field, he looked intensely worried about something not unknown.

"Colonel?"

At the sound of his name, a tall, rather imposing figure stood up. "Sir."

Baryl paused for the effect, a steady snoring could be heard from the back corner. None of Baryl's meetings really interested the Recondite corps, mostly because there was so much lack of action. Any and all the events that members attended were usually some type of fighting, discussing how to fight, or preparing to fight. However, 'Commander General's boring meetings' was a break in the routine. Instead of actually doing something, the corps were left to listen to some guy ramble on about statistics. Any navi with half a brain (about a three-quarters of them) used the precious time to catch up on sleep. Those who were less gifted thumb wrestled..

Baryl sucked in a breath, he knew he had already lost the attention of most of his audience, he continued courageously.

"Where do you think this war will lead? Do you think the only casualties will be navis or will this chaos spill into the human world?" The lines etched into Baryl's forehead deepened in concentration, "do you think the polit's will figure this out on their own before this becomes another world war?"

There really was no reason for him to ask these questions, that was all everyone (everyone, meaning everyone with half a brain) was thinking about nowadays, the war.

A hoarse, slightly insane laughter exploded from one of the seated figures. All eyes fell upon him, including eyes of the slightly annoyed and sleepy. "you still think the _polits _will solve this? The _polits? After they went all Lord of the Flies on each other _during the International Conference_?_"

A silence lay like a cold, heavy blanket over the Recondite Corps, with the exception of the laughing figure and those who had not woken up yet. The speaker held a resemblance to a mechanized Indian, which is quite an oxymoron considering that Indians were some of the most unsophisticated people to populate the earth. He wielded a two sided axe, a tomahawk, that was painted brightly with geometric shapes. He looked to be the type to run out the door and scream, simply because there was too much silence and too little movement in the room.

"So, we are to assume that there will be a war – " He was rudely interrupted by the mechanical Indian.

"Oh hell. We're already in combat." His chair tumbled backwards as he violently stood and began to make hand gestures to aid him in his speech. "Look around Human! You don't feel the effects of the war, but we do! Every day we're tanglin' with the UN's Black Ops, and man, we've gotta fight for our lives. If you want a slight chance of winning this war, than you gotta expand us. The BO's been picking us off one by one, I mean we're only three countries worth – erm fifty around now, they've got the whole world's!" The Indian's face had contorted into a picture of pure frustration and his hands seemed to move about him at their own accord. He eventually ran out of steam, righted his chair, and joined in with the silent majority. Baryl mentally corrected Tomahawk's sentence fragments and exhaled loudly.

There was a beep on the wall-mounted clock signaling 12:00. Half of the audience drifted into food-based day-dreams. Desperate to save the situation, as he was every time he called a meeting, he consulted his navi.

"Colonel, do you have an opinion?" There was a note of anxiety in his voice. Baryl never liked to look like a fool in front of someone, worse, in front of a group of people. This rarely happened, most people* respected his intellect to such an extent that they completely disregarded his rather strange physical appearance and untrained look. However, here, navis seemed to lack the essential virtue, _respect._

"I've heard, that the reason the UN's Black Ops force is so large -" Tomahawk jerked awake and elbowed his companion," is that they are hiring some of the most infamous and skilled undernet mercenaries into their ranks."

The interesting thing sleep mode was that although the conscious area of the brain shuts down, the subconscious takes over. The subconscious, although less intelligent** can, and will awake the conscious mind when something important to the individual is mentioned. Baryl found himself getting the full attention of his audience for the first time, he was very pleased.

"and who did you hear this from?"

"Serenade" The crowd twittered aggressively before dying down into silence. None of the navis really held any, nor had any reason to hold a grudge against Serenade, he was simply some really powerful, really smart guy who floated around in the distance and never bothered anyone. Still, he could be considered an enemy with the old,_ 'If you're not with us, you're against us!'***_

"hmm... so would it be wise for us to do the same?" it was an obviously rhetorical question. Baryl sank into a long moment of thinking before addressing the group, all whom were wide awake and staring at him. "Colonel, send someone to find all the notable navis in the undernet, we'll see who we can recruit."

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* I refer to _people_ as anything that is slightly humanoid and has enough intelligence to power a ten-watt lightbulb for half a minute.

** this is questionable. We take into account that all navis (excluding antiques) were based off the same model blueprint that was written by a Russian nearly forty years ago. This blueprint set the subconscious of the navi to awareness slightly higher than that of a human, meaning that the subconscious abilities of all navis (again,excluding antiques) were roughly the same. However, as mentioned multiple times, some of the Recondite troops were exceedingly dumb. ~For some reason the scientists were unable to improve the Russian's blueprint so they left it as it was. They could change the complexity of the superficial details: level of intelligence, appearance, defense etc...; but could not tamper with any of the underlying code, else the navi would either suffer from schizophrenia, violent mood swings, or complete existence failures. In some cases, all of the above.

*** this saying is just for those who want to pick a fight. Sadly, most of the Recondite Corps would love to pick a fight with Serenade. His response would probably be to act stupid and girly. It was the best way to get rid of bloodthirsty thugs, they are left bemused and partially horrified. Told you he was smart.

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><p>I originally planned to only put the first part (the fail politics) into this chapter. but 600 odd words just doesn't cut it, huh.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

I apologize for the shabby quality of last chapter. I promise I'll try harder.

I forgot to add a disclaimer. I'ts just something to add, I won't be sued anyway, you can't sue me. You don't know who I am :D

... not mine...

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><p>Ever since technology expanded from simple text, preloaded programs, and keyword search engines, to creating thinking beings, and virtual worlds, the internet had been a world of never-ending space and activity. Programmers created whole cities, as complex or even more so than their original, earthly counterparts. They then built navis, virtual people, to fill the cities with, some to work in shops, police forces, firefighters and so on. Finally they built custom navis, individual human counterparts that could be used to move about in the virtual world where the programmers played god. Everything in the real world corresponded to it's virtual counterpart.<p>

However, the world could not be perfect. The internet was accessible to all who had a computer; including those who are very bored and have too much time. As a result, amateurishly created viruses overran the internet. The programmers didn't know how to fend off these viruses that came in such swarms, and decided simply to bury the place in mile thick desert. Even then, they couldn't help but add a final testimony to their work. They filled the place with jagged rocks, set gusts of wind in motion and abandoned the place with a parting laugh.*

A huge wolf-like creature leapt into a stone ledge and turned to look over it's shoulder. It was large and powerfully built, about the size of a horse, and was composed of what seemed to be a stiff black substance filled with rectangular glowing lights. From behind it's head, a large mane composed of the same black substance swept backwards in the form of squared-off spines. The wolf growled as the wind swept through the desolate wasteland, it had a large number** of very dangerous looking, and fully operational teeth, tiny dull eyes, and looked like it had down syndrome – nobody like to mess with a gigantic, demented, slavering wolf,( unless you were another gigantic demented, slavering wolf but then I couldn't infer any behavior patterns. You see, i've never been a rabid animal before, and have no intentions into becoming one).

The beast waited dumbly on the edge of the cliff for it's mental circuits to rearrange themselves before realizing that something was wrong, it took another ten seconds for it to figure out exactly what. Here was it's hard-won conclusion, _'Where is my Master?'. _

The wolf twittered in anxiety, it didn't know how to solve this kind of problem. It knew how to solve the problem of 'there's something that's here, but shouldn't be here'(it became lunch). However the 'there's something that should be here and isn't?' bemused it's pitifully small mind to no end. It lay down and stared forlornly over the ledge as if his best fried had just died.

"Gospel! What are you doing!" A fierce looking black navi had jumped from a higher ledge and hit the ground with a dull _thunk_. The navi was an interesting one. He wore a dirty tattered cloak around his shoulders, it fell down to his ankles and obscured anything in between. His helmet was colored black and gold, and swept back from the bridge of his nose to almost six inches from the back of his head. This actually wasn't an oddity considering where they were. Operators (the human counterpart of a navi) had to power to alter the appearance of their partners, so therefore the navis, especially those belonging to stupid and/or eccentric, turned out looking more like elongated car engines, than anything humanoid.

The wolf scrambled to it's feet and panted happily at it's master. The navi shook his head. "you really are a stupid dog," he received more panting in reply.

The black navi sighed and sat down heavily on a nearby rock to examine his arm. Today his wrist refused to bend, his elbow bent the wrong way, and his fingers felt like they were recently thawed out from a thousand year old ice-cube. The only logical reasoning he could discern from his symptoms and years of wandering the plains, was that he was simply too full of crap programs, bits of badly programmed stuff that was clogging up, slowing down, and pretty much screwing with his systems. He must have been eating too many viruses lately. Navis were hard to find nowadays, darkloids***, even more so.

Although, he was a program, he _could _manipulate the code, but would most likely kill himself in the process. He had once tried to rewire Gospel, his constant companion, but ended up completely eradicating the creature's reasoning ability. Technically, it was his fault that Gospel was so stupid, but he complained about it nothingness.

He looked briefly for a rational solution to repair his disobedient appendage****, found none, and settled to smash it against the rock wall, which, usually worked quite well if you could disregard pain. (_do not smash your computer on the ground if it's not working. That's not how you fix it_)

The navi's red eyes scanned the distance, the whole landscape was a sparsely populated wasteland. Perhaps his presence was a factor in that. Wherever he went nobody was there except for one or two terrified trash-programs that quickly scurried away as soon as they caught scent of him on their radars. In reality, the Undernet might be a thriving metropolitan, that disappeared as soon as he came within 100 leagues. This, however, was unimportant. He was not lonely, he felt no urge to go and destroy things (for his arm had gone numb again), and was content to simply travel in one direction until he had to turn around and travel in a different direction.

Before, he had a burning hatred for humans. He spent years festering in his hate but it got him killed three times, eaten twice, and allied him with shady organizations that liked to send him on suicide missions, overall it was a bad deal that bought all consequence and no benefit. He dampened his all-consuming hatred to a mere aversion, and took up learning how to write python (*V), eating, and traveling to the edges of the cyberworld.

The navi stood up and focused his optics. About a mile away, kicking up an extraordinary amount of dust, some idiot, that didn't know who to stay away from, raced toward him.

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* They played a horrid joke on all who were forced/chose to make the undernet their home. When the gusts of wind whistled through the rocks and the dead trees,screams or creepy laughs could be heard. The trick succeeded in scaring the pants off the newbies. ~After they sealed the place up (very badly, since holes that lead to the newly dubbed 'undernet' were found quite frequently in the net) and on top of the seal (huge metal gates) they built the current net which had a better defense system then the last. It was called the undernet because it was physically, or in this case, virtually beneath the modern web.

** nobody had been stupid enough so far to try to count them, however, we earnestly encourage you to try. Let natural selection run it's course.

*** I do not play the games so therefore don't know if this is included in all domains of _'Megaman__'. ~ if you absolutely have to know, go put this address into your URL bar. ".com/wiki/Darkloid" (but it's really not that important to the plot)_

**** of course, without risking an immediate and embarrassing existence failure (death).

*V) Python is a computer language, he was programmed in Python.

The lone figure traversing the plain below was on a mission, and a very important mission at that. It had been ordered by the EU to recruit a very powerful navi into their ranks. The commissioner was the first one to take on this venture. However, he knew of this mission's bad reputation. All of the UN Commissioners who had tried to recruit this target had gone missing – keyword for died horrible deaths, but he was from the EU, perhaps he would be the first to persuade the Black Shadow. The commissioner's only comfort was that the target was Russian, and Russia was part of the EU.

Commissioner 1 glanced up from beneath his helmet. On the edge of a nearby, inconveniently placed cliff, his target stood, looking very grumpy. The officer's suicidal jet packs sped him over the sand dunes toward the target. As Commissioner 1 reached the base of the cliff, he felt curiously giddy. He knew he was playing with a painful death and was very surprised to find he was still walking with all his body parts attached. The suicidal jet-pack hefted him up the cliff . The poor soul felt glad that his target had not blasted him into a million pieces yet, he began to contemplate the situation. Perhaps this wasn't the target after all and he would be allowed to return to the EU with a suitable excuse. Or perhaps the target would flee too quickly for his jet pack to follow. Or perhaps, he would successfully recruit the navi. He thought of all the rewards and pay-raises he would receive for this one mission, and allowed his confidence and ego to inflate. He felt calm and confident until he reached the top of the cliff and found himself face to face with a mouthful of evil- looking teeth.

"The UN?" a cold emotionless voice spoke from behind the bulk of the Gospel Virus. The Commissioner tried very hard to sound as cool and collected, as a businessman should, which was very hard since he was almost halfway down the wolf viruses throat. "No sir, the EU, sir." Something hot and sticky dripped into his shoulder pad from one of the evil looking teeth. The Commissioner glanced warily at the prison of teeth he was trapped in, each was easily the thickness of a finger and looked to be stained with blood. The Officer's confidence stabbed itself multiple times and jumped off a cliff into a bed of sharp rocks.

"Really?" the voice took a happier note, or just a less annoyed one, the Commissioner relaxed slightly but seized up when the voice hardened again, "are you trying to pull me into your ranks?"

The commissioner froze and began to shake*, how was he going to get out of this one. He usually was pretty slippery, but the Black Shadow proved more of a challenge then he had expected. He mumbled some nonsense about how all of this was his neighbor's dogs fault**.

"Gospel, Calm down, I'm trying to talk with him. How is he supposed to give a straight answer if you keep trying to make him lunch?" The dog virus retreated at the voice of it's master and stationed itself beside the target, it stared at the Commissioner with a hungry expression and occasionally licked it's lips. The Officer stumbled into the cliff ledge and stared warily at the dog virus. It growled at him, as he diverted his attention to the target. He looked up to meet the target's eyes and instantly regretted it, if the shadow's eye burned any hotter, he would have twin holes seared through his head.

"What is your business here? "

"There's a war sir – "

"I assumed that, over what?" The Commissioner sputtered as he was cut off, he was used to receiving a certain level of respect, he was the best at his job. But you really couldn't expect the target to know that, couldn't you? It was trivial insider's information.

"London sir."

"What?"

"London was destroyed."

"Oh, and I assume Britain is angry?" the burning gaze faded to embers, and the Commissioner thought he saw a slight smile touch the Shadow's lips. The Commissioner's confidence revived itself. He supposed that a normal conversation with someone sane would be highlight of anyone's*** day, especially if the only conversation partner you had was a rabid wolf.

"Yes sir." he replied almost happily.

"Who trashed London?" Here, the Commissioner faltered. He didn't have sound answers for the questions that would lead from here. Perhaps he should try to divert the conversation in a different direction. He attempted to move into how the different governmental systems of the countries made them more or less susceptible to terrorist activity.

"We don't know sir but – " he was cut off again, the Commissioner felt his temper beginning to boil.

"Who is the Prime Minister blaming?" Here the target paused, "they still have a Prime Minister correct?"

"Yes sir, they still have a Prime Minister. Sir – "

"Oh, wonderful..." the target broke off into his own musings, then suddenly posed another question. "So it's Britain fighting... who?" the Commissioner gaped like a dead fish, he _almost _couldn't believe he had been interrupted again. He had been interrupted three times by the same person in the same minute. Most people were more considerate.

The commissioner finally fished his memory bank out from the sea of anger/frustration and spat out an annoyed, "They've blamed Russia."

"What? Russia? Why Russia?" the Commissioner caught a note of concern in the Target's voice. He didn't know the answer to this question, and the Target obviously wanted to know this information badly. This was where his businessman instincts kicked in, fueled by his frustration he tempered his voice into a patronizing tone, and pasted a knowing smile on his face.

"Sir, I'm afraid that I can't give you anymore information."

Four years later, when Commissioner 1 was interviewed, he was asked to tell the public the most frightening thing that had happened to him during his service to the military. The commissioner replied: "The time I was most frightened for my life? Well it'll have to be when I was on a recrusion mission in the Undernet."

The preppy interviewer smiled stickily at the commissioner, "and what happened?".

"It was the Black Shadow," several gasps could be heard in the background, but they were probably edited in to elevate the melodramatic moment. "he was interrogating me about the origins of the War – "

he was interrupted by the sticky interviewer, she smiled horribly at the cameraman. "Why was the Shadow interrogating _you? _Shouldn't you be interrogating _him?_",

A frown, "You see, I was looking after my own survival, the Gospel virus was about to eat me. It's best to follow demands when your life is endangered."

"yes?" the horrible smile remained pasted into her lips despite her folly. Commissioner 1 began to pity the woman's (navi-woman's?) husband.

"I remember it vividly." the camera zoomed in obnoxiously close, "I had made the target angry" the furrows on the commissioner's brow deepened as he tried to remember exactly what had provoked the Shadow's anger, failed and continued, "well, nevermind, but I angered him in some way. He was being very conversational and suddenly got angry." the commissioner shooed away the camera until it stood at a respectable distance before continuing. "His eyes burn like coals, Bass, and when he glared at me then, I thought my heart was going to stop. It felt like someone was scouring your insides with a radioactive wire brush. I swear, I hurt." the Cameraman took the opportunity to nudge closer to the commissioner. " His voice too, that blasted voice, cold and emotionless, like broken glass in a vat of liquid nitrogen****, but still hostile, a superior kind of hostile. Everything went cold, and I felt like I was a tiny meaningless speck in the world, that my life was completely meaningless and..." the Commissioner broke off and smiled weakly at the interviewer. She smiled her fake smile back at him, "And this concludes our – "

"I am looking for someone who goes by the name Bass, or Forte. A combat navi?" the commissioner finished his statement in an unseemly squeak.

"I am he." Despite the dire circumstances, the officer felt happy that some other high-level combat navi knew his grammar, as most of them didn't and would reply with the grammatically incorrect: 'I'm him', or simply slang phrases that didn't make any sense when taken literally, the all-time low being "mmhur?". Perhaps it was his brain's way of keeping the entire situation out of his consciousness, as to not entice emotional breakdown, and a grisly death.

Commissioner 1 snapped back from his mental wandering, the Commissioner took on a professional business-like tone and reverted back to his base programming, "the EU, Russia, China and Japan, are defending themselves against America, and Europe. We need – "

The business speech was cut short when the Gospel Virus bowled the commissioner over into the stone wall. Realizing what he had just done, the Commissioner attempted to correct his mental regression, and the possibly fatal output.

Bass's cold stare was enough to convince the Commissioner not to speak. "I'm sorry Gospel" the navi didn't take his eyes off the commissioner, "It seems like you can't eat this one. I need him to deliver a message for me." the glare intensified slightly, indicating that the commissioner should not interrupt. He didn't.

"You will tell the leaders of the EU that unless you have the nerve to come over here and drag me back to your base, I will not show." Bass nodded sharply, "You will go now, come Gospel" the Target leapt to a higher ledge before turning to glance at the commissioner, a cruel grin transformed his features and he smirked down at the commissioner below, "Consider yourself lucky, If you were the second commissioner, or the third, you would've been eaten by now." the grin grew by a few teeth as the commissioner paled, "Netnavi's _are_ tastier..."

And the Black Shadow was gone.

# # #

* he was already stiff and shaking, he was now just shaking more and sweating something awful as well.

** If only the dog had not woken him up at 5' o clock in the morning, he might have slept until he was late to work. He would risk a drop in payment, but it was far better than chasing navis in the undernet with a jetpack that was determined to get him to his assigned doom.

*** It should be confirmed that most navis in the net were only slightly sane, most lacked the common sense, the memory capacity or intelligence to be considered sane by human standards. There were very few sane navis out there, and the Commissioner thought he was one of them.

**** cold and sharp

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><p>I know you hate my footnotes, but just bear with them. They're not going away.<p>

Bye


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